Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick

St. Matthew.  Painted miniature, Gospel head-piece.  Illuminated Armenian Gospels with Eusebian canons, 1609.  Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

 As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office.  And He said to him, "Follow Me."  So he arose and followed Him.  Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  But go and learn what this means:  'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?"  And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.  But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

- Matthew 9:9-17

Yesterday we read that, after Christ's healing of the demon-possessed men, Jesus got into a boat, crossed over the Sea of Galilee, and came to His own city of Capernaum, the site of His Galilean ministry "headquarters."  Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed.  When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you."  And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, "This Man blasphemes!"  But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise and walk'?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- then He said to the paralytic, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house."  And he arose and departed to his house.  Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.

 As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office.  And He said to him, "Follow Me."  So he arose and followed Him.  Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  But go and learn what this means:  'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."   Mark's Gospel tells us that Matthew is also called Levi (Mark 2:14).  My study bible explains that Roman overlords assigned specific areas to Jewish tax collectors.  In turn, these tax collectors (such as Matthew/Levi) were free to collect extra revenues for their own profit, backed by the might of the Roman state.  Because of their collaboration with the occupying Romans, their fraud, and their corruption, other Jews to hate them and to consider them unclean (11:19), my study bible says.   We can understand, then, how shocking it is that Jesus dines with them and also accepts a tax collector as a disciple ("Follow Me"), and therefore the offended response of the Pharisees.  But this gives rise to the occasion upon which Christ can define His surprising ministry:  "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."  His answer frames His ministry as movement for healing of all kinds:  Christ goes where the need of the physician is greatest.  My study bible says that "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (as Jesus quotes from Hosea 6:6) is not a rejection of sacrifice per se.  Rather it shows that mercy is the higher priority (see Psalm 51).   In this case, Jesus makes it clear that repentance is a form of healing, and is part and parcel of God's mercy.

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?"  And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast."  In Jewish traditional practice, fasting was done twice a week, on Monday and Thursday  (Luke 18:12).  Additionally, there were regularly-declared public fasts or others were occasionally proclaimed (2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Esther 4:16; Joel 2:15), particularly on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:31-34) and in times of mourning (Zechariah 7:5, 8:19).  But Jesus contrasts fasting with the wedding feast of the day of the Messiah.  This is a time of joy and gladness, and the Incarnation is the time when the Bridegroom is with His friends.  So Jesus declares in this passage.  My study bible says that for Christians, fasting is not gloomy but desirable, and calls it a bright sadness, because by fasting we gain self-control and prepare ourselves for the Wedding Feast (Christ's return). 

"No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.  But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."   My study bible explains that the old garment and old wineskins stand for the Old Covenant and the Law.  In this perspective, as Christ presents them here, they are viewed as imperfect and temporary.  The new wineskins are the New Covenant and those in Christ, and in particular the healing ministry He characterizes by referring to Himself as Physician, and the joy of the friends of the Bridegroom through the Incarnation.  My study bible explains also that the new wine is the Holy Spirit dwelling within renewed people, who can't be constrained by the old precepts of the Law, which cannot expand to hold what is new.

In today's reading, it's important to understand that Christ presents His ministry as that of a physician.  He's come to heal.  Therefore He goes to the ones who transgress the Law in order to bring repentance to them.  Moreover, He is the Bridegroom, the One whose wedding feast brings joy to the people.  This also is a picture of healing, as the wedding feast is the union of Creator and God's people, a supremely longed-for restoration of true community and harmony, and a return to the life meant to be good as given by God.  So what is healing for us?  How is it related to repentance?  If we're thinking in a highly legalistic way, there aren't going to be a lot of gray areas.  If one thinks in terms of transgression and failure, we can get stuck in limited thinking that fails to consider that repentance, in the context of the grace which Christ brings,  is able to heal and restore right-relationship and community.  Let us keep in mind that "right-relationship" can be among the community, between ourselves and God, and even an internal disposition to the things which are truly good for us, the true "natural" state for which we were created to begin with.  Repentance can work to build such a state in us, and it can work on a continual kind of basis -- and especially through prayer -- to help to heal us in ways we wouldn't expect through merely worldly considerations or expectations.  How does one heal, for example, abuse which has fractured or disfigured an understanding of what love is?  How can God as Physician step in and remedy what has been broken in community?  If we take the example of the Jewish tax collectors of this Roman period, they are seen as breaking community by acting as predators for outside, occupying forces.  Therefore, they could remain on the outside, or through the "intervention" of the Incarnation, they can come to a repentance and forgiveness of sins so that they may be restored to community, and participate as those who may be restored to right relationship through repentance.  There is the exercise of medicine at work, a corrective effort which means restoration in the eyes of God.  This requires the capacity to expand, to see what is possible, to allow for repentance to do its work.  But it also asks us to admit that as human beings we can be healed.  A tax collector can be restored to community through divine help, even to repentance which does not come from punitive measures but rather from a change of heart, the work of a kind of love (or mercy) that can reach where the worldly can't go.  My study bible calls the "new wine" the Holy Spirit, whose energies in us can bring surprising change which can't easily be explained through worldly experience.  Anyone with a deepening life of prayer, for example, may testify to the kind of love encountered that expands our own worldly experience of love to include potentials we may not have been given within a worldly family life.  So even a tax collector, used to extorting with the help of the Roman state, can come to terms with a justice that must be practiced for true community, and find a new way to live within the community of Christ.  It calls us to wonder about the ways in which we, too, need to expand our understanding of potential and possibility within the healing ministry of Christ the Physician in our own lives and communities, as we see new ailments (or old ailments in new forms) through rejection of the good.  Where do you need restoration and healing?  How do you find a way to a better life in the community of the friends of the Bridegroom, the entire communion of saints and the Body of Christ?  Are there examples that help us expand to see a better way, with the new wine and the new wineskins that will make room for new potentials?  These are the questions to ask ourselves.  And it is important to remind ourselves that they are continually expanding.  What we may think is impossible to solve becomes possible with God, and with faith.  We simply need to make room for our own "change of mind" to find Christ's way to do it.  We will always be asked to stretch.  The new wine continually expands, and so do the wineskins.    This is something we need to keep in mind through the whole of our lives, as the way of our faith may bring us new surprises, and call on us to encompass new possibilities all along the way.   So important is the idea of expansion that Christ's example of new wine and its enzymatic action isn't the only metaphor he'll give for the work of the Spirit.  He will also use leaven, as a positive image, to teach us about the work of God in us (Matthew 13:33)  Let us endeavor to find His way through all things, especially when we feel we're stuck, or we've come to a "dead end," or an impossible hurdle or impasse.    For Christ our Physician there is no such thing, if we seek His way.